1. Prevent waste: Design
chemical syntheses to prevent waste, leaving no waste to treat or clean up.
2. Design safer chemicals and products: Design chemical products to be fully effective, yet have
little or no toxicity.
3. Design less hazardous chemical syntheses: Design syntheses to use and generate substances with
little or no toxicity to humans and the environment.
4. Use renewable feedstock: Use raw materials and feedstock that are renewable rather
than depleting. Renewable feedstock are often made from agricultural products
or are the wastes of other processes; depleting feedstock are made from fossil
fuels (petroleum, natural gas, or coal) or are mined.
5. Use catalysts, not stoichiometric reagents: Minimize waste by using catalytic reactions. Catalysts are
used in small amounts and can carry out a single reaction many times. They are
preferable to stoichiometric reagents, which are used in excess and work only
once.
6. Avoid chemical derivatives: Avoid using blocking
or protecting groups or any temporary modifications if possible. Derivatives
use additional reagents and generate waste.
7. Maximize atom economy: Design
syntheses so that the final product contains the maximum proportion of the
starting materials. There should be few, if any, wasted atoms.
8. Use safer solvents and reaction conditions: Avoid using solvents, separation agents, or other
auxiliary chemicals. If these chemicals are necessary, use innocuous chemicals.
If a solvent is necessary, water is a good medium as well as certain
eco-friendly solvents that do not contribute to smog formation or destroy the
ozone.
9. Increase energy efficiency: Run
chemical reactions at ambient temperature and pressure whenever possible.
10.Design chemicals and products to degrade after use: Design chemical products to
break down to innocuous substances after use so that they do not accumulate in
the environment.
11.Analyze in real time to prevent pollution: Include in-process real-time monitoring and control during
syntheses to minimize or eliminate the formation of byproducts.
12. Minimize the potential for
accidents: Design chemicals and their
forms (solid, liquid, or gas) to minimize the potential for chemical accidents
including explosions, fires, and releases to the environment.
Green Chemistry and India
In a country like India, there hasn’t been much emphasis laid on
development or practicing of green chemistry. The laidback approach doesn’t
really see the benefits that green chemistry can bring. With the increasing
levels of pollution in all forms due to rapid industrialization, there is a need
to understand the need of green chemistry.
Though there has been some research
done by some groups like development of solid support reagents and catalysts useful
for organic transformations at IICT, Hyderabad or the initiation of a program
to develop green synthetic methods by designing reaction protocols without
involving organic solvents by IACS, Kolkata.
Green chemistry has major contributions to make to the quality
of life, human welfare, and sustainable development. However, before green
chemistry can contribute fully to these areas, it must be integrated into the
discipline of chemistry itself. This requirement
presents a number of major challenges to the chemical profession:
- Chemists
will need to integrate into pure chemistry the questions of why or why
not, on environmental protection grounds.
- It
is vital that green chemistry not become a fad, in which chemistry that is
not really “green” gets paraded as such before the scientific community
and the world.
- Certain
of the largest sustainability issues, where chemists have so much to
offer, will require new approaches that can only be built with long-term commitment.
In order to allow for the full potential of green chemistry to
explore the scientific and economic advances the scientific community needs to
provide educational opportunities to train chemists of the future. Since green
chemistry requires the same skills and abilities of traditional chemistry,
students of all ages can learn the fundamental concepts in ways that are more
environmentally benign.
Practicing of green chemistry in India is a
necessity rather than an option. The
future of green India is in the hands of young researchers and students, as the
practice of green chemistry is a moral responsibility for them. Government
agencies should enforce the laws strictly to practice green chemistry.
Industries should also understand their moral responsibility
toward the fragile environment.